


someone else's immortality is painful to carry

by bissextile



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-17 04:13:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13651212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bissextile/pseuds/bissextile
Summary: Rey is an aspiring law student and Professor Ren really likes the work of Sigmund Freud.





	someone else's immortality is painful to carry

**Author's Note:**

  * For [punkeraa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/punkeraa/gifts).



Professor Ren’s staring at her again, and Rey’s trying very hard to look anywhere else. He’s assigned Freud’s _Civilization and Its Discontents_ this week. She doesn’t agree with most of what Freud’s arguing. He says that individual freedom and happiness have to fall into conformity with society’s laws, so that we don’t just end up killing each other when we have a disagreement or have sexual encounters with everyone we feel attracted to. Although society’s laws allow us to create a world in which we apparently get along and allow for human flourishing, we’re always discontent because of those repressed drives that have been forbidden. Rey can’t believe that people would want to murder each other all the time in competition for sexual conquests; she thinks human beings are more complex than that, and not everyone just has an insatiable sexual drive.

Of course, if she said that to Professor Ren, he would just tell her that she might not know her own unconscious desires, that as Freud argues, she’s repressed them. Professor Ren usually agrees with Freud.

She stays quiet for the first time in class, because she doesn’t want him to tell her she wants something she doesn’t want. She can’t bear him thinking that he knows her own mind better than she does.

“So,” Professor Ren says slowly. “Now that I’ve summarized the main argument of the book for all those who hasn’t bothered to read it, does anyone want to challenge Freud?”

It’s usually Rey who says something like Freud can’t possibly understand the intricacies of the human psyche, he was a misogynistic bastard who imposed his own psychological problems onto other people’s psyches. And Professor Ren would look at her intently, telling her that he appreciates her candour but she should really engage with the text more closely, maybe she’ll find reading him worthwhile.

She’s too tired from working two part-time jobs while taking more courses than she should to read everything he assigns. She’s too tired to care, and she knows that he won’t fail her because when she writes her essays she structures her argument so tightly and persuasively it’s as if she was arguing against the Supreme Court.

Someone else answers, and while his eyes are to the left of the class, she looks up and sees bruising under his eyes. It’s his first year as an assistant professor and he’s only 28, because he would be brilliant enough to land a tenure-track job while others are still trudging through never-ending PhDs. She knows all this because she’s followed his career ever since in 9th grade she came across a poem of his in an online magazine that haunted her for weeks. She didn’t understand it when she first read it, but a phrase sank into her mind: “Someone else’s immortality is the most painful thing to carry.” To some degree, she thinks she’s gone through the last few years of her life waiting for comprehension to suddenly dawn on her. Why would it be painful to carry someone else’s immortality? How could you carry it?

She’s missed most of what the other student said.

“The problem is,” Professor Ren says quietly, “you would be right if you didn’t take into account the unconscious. In the end, we can’t possibly know ourselves as much as we think we do.”

 

 

He catches her as she’s leaving the class.

“Are you feeling alright? I thought you would be all over my invitation to argue against Freud today.”

“I’m okay, thank you for asking.”

“I know you’re working a lot. Let me know if I can do anything to make things easier for you.”

Rey looks at him, surprised, but he nods at her and leaves the room. She’s never had someone nod like that to her, as if she were an equal. Something inside her glows. Her efforts to tamp it down don’t work.

She also thinks that he really isn’t supposed to offer to make things easier for her. How would that be fair to the other students? This feels awfully like some movie where the student asks for “extra credit” in return for…. services. Except the roles are reversed here. She wonders if he’d want something in return.

Alone in the cold classroom, she blushes furiously. She’s a month away from graduation, and she’s waiting to hear back from law schools. She really doesn’t need this now.

 

 

The last time he holds office hours, she finds herself going to ask him about the poem. She still hasn’t figured it out, and law school isn’t going to give her a lot of time to mull over poetry.

He looks startled when she tells him quickly that she’s read a poem of his and would he explain what it means or at least give her a way into the poem.

“Well,” he says slowly, “thank you for reading it. I wrote that a long time ago, when I was at a very different place in my life. Is there a specific line that’s giving you difficulty?”

She tells him the line about someone else’s immortality. He looks pensively at a spot beyond her right ear.

“Rey, have you ever been so attached to a person that they have become an idea? And if they are still alive then they keep living their life, separate from the idea of them you have in your head. And if they are dead, then you’re the only one keeping something of them alive. Either way, in a sense, they’re immortal in you. The idea of the person will not go away.”

She realizes his eyes are very clear when he looks at her.

“And if you’re someone who’s dedicated your life to finding what we call the truth, then being stuck with this idea that becomes further and further from the approximation of who a person actually was—that’s incredibly painful.”

Suddenly, she thinks that when she’s in law school, she will remember this moment in March. His voice telling her something she thinks she knew all long, somewhere deep inside of her. His words, bringing out intuitions she could never quite bury.

“Do you really believe in the unconscious?” she blurts out, embarrassed at her sudden redirection of the conversation.  

“I think the unconscious can be a tool for us to realize how little we know about ourselves and each other. But you, I don’t think you believe in it. You want to go to law school, shape how language affects the outside world, not the inner world. If a tool stops working for you, you should let it go.”

Rey frowns, taken aback. “How did you know I was applying to law school?”

Professor Ren looks down, looking slightly embarrassed. It’s a strange look for someone who is usually dark and imposing. “I may have a colleague—uh, friend—a law professor—we were looking through incoming applications together last Friday.”

Rey’s heart jumps and sinks.

He smiles blearily at her. “I probably shouldn’t tell you. Not cross more boundaries than I have already. I’m sorry for that the other day. It was inappropriate for me to offer you help, when you didn’t ask for it. I know you are intelligent and conscientious enough to accomplish anything you set your mind to.”

“Thank you,” she says softly.

“You should find out the way everyone else does. Then you can tell the one person who you know will be just as excited as you or just as devastated as you. And then you can skip class, because you’ve got all your assignments in. Go live out your life for a bit before more demands take up your time.”

She doesn’t want this to be the last time she sees him. If they see each other on campus, she doesn’t want him to walk by her with a brief hello before getting back to his work. Light streams through his frosted window, making him beautiful. Untouchable. She is afraid that he may become immortal. Just an idea in her head.

“Will you be here the next couple of years?” she asks him.

“I have no plans of relocating.”

She can’t think of anything else to say, to make this moment in March last longer. It’s ten minutes in one day, but these are the moments that matter the most, decades later.

“Thank you,” she says again. “Whatever happens, I’ll come to the last class.”

He smiles, as if he truly, profoundly means it. “Good. I think you’ll like Luce Irigaray.”

 


End file.
